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The audience were very impressed to learn how in just 19 months LatiPay has become recognised as the ‘PayPal for Western merchants wanting to transact business with Chinese customers’.

Leigh drew upon two examples to highlight how the LatiPay system works for businesses – Convita who is selling New Zealand honey directly to Chinese consumers and Jucy Rentals who rent to Chinese visitors once they arrive in New Zealand. Credit cards are not commonly used by Chinese consumers, who prefer to do business via e-wallet systems.

LatiPay is the only compliant solution that provides customers access to the five main Chinese e-wallets WeChat, Alipay, JDPay, BaiduPay, Tenpay and nineteen main Chinese Banks. Latipay charge no fee to merchants because LatiPay’s strategy has been to sacrifice margin in order to quickly achieve scale.

Leigh and his small team have been focussing on gaining recognition and credibility in the Chinese market by securing awards in Australia and the States alongside developing partnership arrangements with Australian and Chinese banks.

Securing Singaporean venture capital funding has also been a priority since LatiPay’s inception. Leigh described the road to securing venture capital funding as being similar to travelling on an airport travelator – you get carried along and once you get on, you can’t get off, you just have to keep on going to your destination.

Auckland UniServices, the commercial arm of the University of Auckland, has set up an innovation institute in the Chinese city of Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, to further develop commercial opportunities for its research.

UniServices was offered a large building in the Hangzhou Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone, the self-described Silicon Valley of China where major companies such as Motorola, Nokia and Siemens have set up research and development centres. The Chinese car company Geely and e-commerce giant the Alibaba Group were also founded there.

Entries are now open for the 2017 NZ Hi-Tech Awards, New Zealand’s premier technology event.

The Hi-Tech Awards recognise the achievers of the NZ Hi-Tech industry from the start-up and emerging categories through to the coveted PwC Company of the Year, which was won in 2016 by Vista Group.

Additional categories recognise excellence in the product sectors covering software, services, hardware, mobile, creative and Agritech, as well as Maori Innovation, which was a new category in 2016 and drew a record number of entrants.

AgileNZ is the conference for New Zealand’s agile and software innovation community. Now in its fifth year and on track for 500 attendees , AgileNZ is now a major event for the NZ technology community. There are six keynotes this year, along with a vast range of other international and national speakers:Read more

If you supply services or digital goods to Australian consumers, recent changes to the way Australia taxes these transactions mean you may now need to register in Australia for the goods and services tax (GST).Read more

TechWeek Auckland is an exciting week-long festival to shine a spotlight on the city’s role in advancing New Zealand’s technology, science and innovation initiatives. NZSA is pleased to support this unmissable cluster of events by sponsoring the Angel@mytable event on 18th May at The Grid.

Hudson Gavin Martin is delighted to be continuing its support of GridAKL and Velocity in 2016:

Velocity (previously known as Spark) is the University of Auckland Entrepreneurship Programme which has been empowering students and staff of the University of Auckland since 2003. Participants have launched more than 120 start-up ventures which have attracted $200 million in investment and are selling products and services in over 35 countries. Read more about Velocity here.

GridAKL is Auckland’s technology and innovation precinct, housing some of New Zealand’s most innovative and ambitious start-ups. GridAKL’s aim is to help these companies grow, export, and thrive. Read more about GridAKL here.

NZSA Events

Our high value networking events are held on the second Tuesday of the month at Glengarry Victoria Park and feature a two course meal and wine tasting with a professional sommelier. Join us for our next event!

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The NZSA would like to thank the following organisations for their continued support: